Hey everyone!
I know it's been a while, I hadn't meant for it to be so long but life got in the way. University started back up, I lost my mum and a whole host of other things hit me in the meantime.
I want to give a huge thank you to the army of people who beta read the chapter and helped shape it into what it is today; Taliesin19, x102RedDragon, NerdDragonVoid, Liberty Prime and Honorverse fan, without their suggestions and help it wouldn't be what you have here today.
I hope you enjoy the long-awaited chapter, Dancing Infinities.
She knows.
Breathe.
Blink.
Breathe.
She knows.
The harsh clarity rang loud in a hollow head. Her distant, percussive footsteps were the only reminder to breathe.
Blink.
Breathe.
Harry worked to extricate himself from the passionate embrace and furiously smoothed out his robes, desperate to hide any evidence of what he'd done.
Maybe, the naive thought rose with all the hope he could muster, maybe if there was no physical evidence, he could convince her nothing happened. It was a mirage, she was tired—they were just friends, that was all.
Her door slammed from down the hall, hard enough to shake their own and it became quickly apparent that the naive hope was just that—naive.
He didn't have the courage to see what Fleur's expression was, he could envision every possibility, every catastrophe, it was never destined to be quick, easy or clean. But, eventually, that courage came slow and sure in the silence, his eyes drifted to hers.
The breath that met his skin was hoarse and laboured, the thoughts let loose, the adrenaline flowed in aching rivulets and his breath quickened.
"Harry," Fleur whispered, a noise so quiet and quick he wasn't sure if it was imagined.
He didn't have the breath to speak words he wasn't sure he even had, they'd both have to make do with the soft nod.
"What do we do?"
Her following question was one he'd expected to come, one he'd lamented for all the short time he'd been allowed reprieve to think a thought beyond what lay at their feet.
"I don't know," Harry whispered to her. It was simple, succinct and not at all what he'd intended.
In truth, he wasn't sure what he'd intended.
Was it to hold her close and proclaim his love yet again? Was it to lie and say it'd all be alright, just to make it all seem bearable for a moment or two?
In the arduous search of self to discover what best to do, he looked at her again and found her worse than he'd left seconds ago. Eyes red and raw, a tear track that ran a single, solitary river down to the crest of her cheek.
Has this all been my fault?
Out of the thousands of thoughts that swirled in chaotic droves, that was the sole one he managed to grasp and cling to. Even if it was the wrong one.
Was this all a horrible outcome at his hands? He'd orchestrated it all, the parties, the kiss, the love they shared. He'd taken her care and love and given her a war in return. Both with wands and hearts.
He'd been the snake that slithered into Eden. The forbidden fruit hadn't even been a temptation, it'd all been peaceful, tranquil until he arrived. He'd cared, he'd asked about her day and been a companion to beat back the coldness of isolation in the distant hope the fruit would be all the more appealing.
It'd been wrong, it had always been wrong.
Then, at his direction, she'd taken her bite. The grass had disappeared beneath their feet and they plummeted—the sudden and harsh descent to earth.
"I'm… I'm sorry," was his meagre response as anxiety rose at the thought of her response.
At his words, she busied herself with the arduous task of tracing the corners of the room with her eyes.
Though she dared not to look at him, her reply came all the same. "What for?"
Fleur's voice was as muted as the bedroom lights, a phantom of its former self. He was certain it was the sort of pain that would haunt him as his heart tore with the shuddering breath that followed.
Harry swallowed against the rising words. "You… you know what for."
He didn't want to say the words aloud and, clearly, neither did she. They'd never spoken of the truth that lingered at the perimeter, the one that threatened to tear their little piece of happiness apart. How could they? Had words yet been invented that could possibly be a balm on such a wound?
The silence was stagnant, it left them in the room wondering as their final point of contact dwindled to barely touching hands.
It was stagnant, yet safe. Words served no purpose and platitudes garnered no gain, all that remained was the waning illusion that it would all be fine.
It wouldn't be—it couldn't. But, for now, he could stomach the lie.
"I—" Harry opened his mouth and the sound escaped before he had the good sense to neuter it.
Time, he realised. She needs time.
"I'll talk to her," he whispered, the illusion erupting with every word.
In lieu of words she didn't have and that he didn't want to hear, she nodded and drifted towards the bed. A pale, ivory-skinned spectre of what once was.
There was no outspokenness or candour, no passion or pride. Just the dull realisation that it'd all come to a head and that, one way or another, the facade was at an end.
It had died a sudden and gruesome death.
He staggered down the hallway as if he were a man going to war, each step falling with the sort of grim determination only mustered by someone who knew the destination, and knew it didn't end well.
Every door on the second floor of Grimmauld Place looked the same, crafted with a sort of austere symmetry he had never been a fan of. Every door looked the same except hers—Hermione's. It seemed ten feet higher than the rest, crafted with steel, not oak and weighed more than he could ever hope to lift. There was this fear that even if he was able to push the door aside, he'd simply be met by a hole in the floor—the kind where you'd fall forever.
But, he supposed, he'd already been falling for quite some time.
It was that thought, fleeting as it was, that made the door seem just that little bit smaller, and allowed him to step before it.
"Hermione?" Harry tried, though it wasn't loud enough to truly rouse any attention from within. Rather than call to her again, he tried to knock, two fingers falling gently on the door.
Though, perhaps too gently if the lack of response was anything to go off.
He waited a few short moments in the hopes she'd come to the door before his first call was followed in turn by a second, slightly louder than its predecessor. However, part of him relished the idea of his calls going unheeded.
How did you answer the questions when you didn't have the words or answers yourself? Better yet, how did anyone expect you to answer them?
Whether or not he had the answers was irrelevant, he supposed, when the soft call finally came from within.
"Come in."
He stood in limbo for a few seconds that felt far too brief, his hand hovering dangerously close to the handle. All it'd take was gravity to run its course and the door would come free, inviting him into the room and all that awaited him.
But despite all his courage in matters of war, it was a battle he was wholly unaccustomed to.
Not a word had been spoken of his tryst with Fleur to anyone but her and even their chats about their state of affairs had been hurried and soon brushed under the rug. There had always been another topic more tasteful or an issue more pressing. Past a point, there seemed no purpose to even bothering about it.
He found himself wishing that for all those times he'd allowed her to brush it off, to move onwards to more pleasurable pursuits and forget what truly existed between them, that they hadn't. That anything might prepare him for this.
As inevitable as the gravity that tugged at his outstretched hand, courage came in tiny, fleeting measures to do the right thing as he always had—until he hadn't. The handle warred against his hand for but a moment before twisting with an audible click, the door pushing open and allowing him inside.
The room was as it had been last year, save the painful memories of Ginny at the corners of his vision, the hopes she might be somewhere she'd never be again. Harry's eyes soon fell on Hermione, sat upon her bed with a book closed and draped lazily over her legs. That was sign enough, he supposed, Hermione had never been lazy when it came to books.
It served to give the room a measure of feigned normalcy, it made him crave the more sincere form. Her eyes, much like the book, trailed to him lazily and in the light of the chandelier he could spy a few errant tears left shining within them.
Between them the detente began, bolstered at either side with the sudden and unwelcome turbulence of emotion as their eyes met. Harry searched one final time for the words—the right ones but came up blank.
"Hey," was his meek offering, just loud enough to be classified as something beyond a whisper.
Hermione sat up straighter and the book slid down her legs, "Hey?" she questioned hotly, "that's all you've got to say? Hey?"
The sigh that left his lips was unintentional, coming out tired and worn, "What do you want me to say, Hermione?"
Their fights were usually always quick, he'd acquiesce and unlike Ron, refuse to start a war of attrition over every minuscule infraction. Though he knew this was no such instance, the war had begun and no simple 'I'm sorry' would beget an armistice. He'd have to weather the trenches and simply hope.
"I don't want you to say anything," Hermione said, the book sliding further until it bounced from the bed and hit the floor like a starting pistol. "I need you to tell me it wasn't true. That what I saw wasn't real, that it was just a momentary weakness—anything, tell me anything and I'll believe it."
This wasn't like her, once upon a time she'd have yelled him down and marched to Bill herself to explain what she'd seen but with all that had happened. He supposed even the toughest ships rocked when they met unsteady seas somewhere. Yet here she was, offering him a ticket out if only he could lie.
And he couldn't, it had never even been in the cards.
"It wasn't," Harry said, his voice hoarse around the edges as the words came out hurried. "I… Fleur and I have been together since Christmas. We've been having an…" The words he thought to speak sounded like venom on his lips, "affair."
"Oh."
The word had felt like venom and landed like it too, such an infamous word made her recoil in bed. Silence fell soon after his words, crude and ineloquent met their mark and found the soft flesh of the heart.
"I…" Hermione began and paused, then began again and paused once more for good measure. "I can't even… why?"
Why had he begun this affair? He was the driving force behind it, it'd been him with the declaration in the orchard. He had been the oxygen to reignite embers that burned all around them when they raged with passion.
Had it been because she was beautiful? Because she was witty? Had it been as simple as needing someone after everything?
"I su—" Harry began but Hermione cut him off before he could stumble for answers.
Hermione huffed and he could sense anger bubbling over, "I'm not even sure I want to know why, I'm not sure I could even fathom it. All that's been going on, the war and the bur—and poor Bill." She took a moment to compose herself, "I want to understand why, we're in the middle of a war, we've lost so much and you went and took her."
The accusation rang like a gunshot, leaving the same sort of disorientation as he felt each dagger made of words fling into his chest.
Harry's next breath came out ragged, "I hadn't meant for it to happen like this, you've got to believe me."
"Maybe," she said, "but I find it hard to believe that while I had to research something so important," tiny specks of spittle shot from her mouth as she said the word, "that you couldn't even tell me the purpose of it. Only to find you kissing an engaged woman, to your best friend's brother no less, so excuse me if I'm in no rush to accept that."
So came the reckoning, what he always feared.
"These things happen and we can't always control them," Harry tried placatingly. "Do you really think if I had any choice in the matter I'd have done it like this? That I'd have to be in secret every time I want to talk to her? Or that I'd hurt so many people in the process?"
"I thought I knew, I'd have staked my life on knowing. But now I'm not so sure."
Those words stung like a whip and he knew his face betrayed what he felt and if she had noticed, she'd cared little for it which set the sting off again.
The war, what little she had been exposed to, had changed her—it'd changed them all.
His next breath was harsher, forced through the thin gap between his clenched teeth. "I didn't want for this to happen," he reiterated. "I swear on my life I didn't, but it did. I can't change that it did, maybe I don't want to. But it happened this way and I can't explain why."
Legs swung towards him and propelled her to her feet, perhaps to see if she could find answers at a closer distance or maybe to appear threatening—he wasn't sure.
"Well, maybe I want you to explain!" Hermione cried, "I don't understand any of this," her hands were outstretched as she gestured around the room. "Your best friend lost his family, we lost so many people. People outside these walls are herded into groups like cattle and killed and you," she jammed her finger into his chest once, then twice and again and again, each time losing a little more force.
"You," she spat again, "were here, while people were fighting and dying, kissing her, that… that… slut! So help me understand, help me understand what made you betray us. Because I want to, I want more than anything for you to have a good reason."
That accusation, the implied cowardice, sent his own blood hot. "You think I haven't been fighting too?" Harry bit back, "I've fought more than anyone, lost more than anyone. So excuse me for trying to find happiness somewhere, anywhere."
"Happiness at the cost of someone else's isn't happiness," Hermione returned, her riposte sharp, "it's just shifting pain."
As much as he hated it the line was not without its gravity and, under the crushing weight of the pain he might've—must've caused, they both paused for a second to regain a semblance of composure.
It was Harry that broke the silence.
"Hogwarts," Harry whispered and her eyes flickered from wherever she sent them, as if she couldn't bear to look at him, back to his face.
"Pardon?"
With eyes closed and a final forlorn sigh he embarked on the journey, "You wanted to know how it started," he said. "It all started at Hogwarts."
"Is this something I'm going to want to hear?"
"No," he said. "But I think it's something I need to say."
She was pensive for a moment, though he wasn't sure why. Her contemplation ended with a brief nod after what felt like an eternity.
"Go on," she acquiesced.
"Like I said," Harry began, "it all began at Hogwarts. She needed someone with knowledge of the castle to help map the wards, personally, I think she was just a bit frightened with everything. But then, I don't know how you'd describe it, we got… closer. Fleur asked for help with more and I accepted, eventually, we became friends, and then we duelled."
"I don't know if duelling is the height of romantic activities," Hermione commented as she stared at him.
That made him snort, even if only a small one. "It doesn't seem like it, no. But I guess you get a feel for the person, you get to know their weaknesses after a while and that scares people more than anyone cares to admit."
Hermione cocked her head to the side and peered more intently at him, "and then Slughorn's parties?" She guessed.
"Yeah, I guess so," Harry agreed. "I never really meant to take her but I needed her help, and she's good company."
"Needed her help with what exactly?" Hermione inquired with a bitter edge in her tone as he internally cursed a poor choice of words.
"Something…" Was the eloquent reply he chose, "something important. So important I can't tell you, something I don't want to tell you even if I could, it's something so terrible even the world forced itself to forget."
His clear refusal seemed to stoke the flames further, rather than douse them. "Have you forgotten what secrets got you last time?"
"Some secrets are terrible when they're held," he replied, "some are even worse when they're told."
"Yet you told her."
Harry met her eyes in an attempt to convey all the sincerity he felt, "because I needed her to know, I needed her to help. I need you and Ron too, but I don't need you in the same way. It's not a lesser way, just a different one."
He searched her face for some indication of acceptance but found none.
"And in this story when do you kiss and forget she's engaged? Before or after the secret?"
Biting his tongue from a more venomous retort, he continued. "Christmas, I was hurt, that's why I was in the hospital wing. She helped me some more and when I woke up we went to the Burrow. I…" His breath hitched and he flicked his eyes back to her face, "I loved her and I wanted to tell her on Christmas but she was with Bill and everything seemed so happy for them, so I didn't. Instead, I went to the orchard to be alone, mope and move on, I suppose. And then she followed me."
"The night the Burrow burned," Hermione whispered and stared at him with unbridled emotion, a volatile cocktail of hurt and hatred that flared and flamed in the light.
The role he played that night or lack thereof, was burned into his mind like a brand. Thoughts could never stray too far for fear of feeling the guilt crushing him underfoot. How was he to know it'd happen? Could he have stopped it if he was there?
But he'd learned some time ago from someone he trusted dearly that lamenting the mistakes we made was a vice of men who were done with the world. The better got up, they tried again, and they tried to do it better.
Harry's nod was soft and almost lost as an idle movement of his head. "The same, and I might be the reason they died, I've spent enough nights thinking that. So yell that at me if you want, tell me I could've saved them, you can't do any worse than I've already done. But she followed me there and then I fell, we fell together. I wish it was in a different way, I'm forever wishing it was easier on her, but I don't regret falling. That's what happens in the end, you care so much you just can't help it. Knowing it might be the wrong person doesn't help, nothing does, only them."
"You've been together since Christmas," Hermione said, "Over a month. You've been having an affair for over a month and no one thought to tell Bill? To break the engagement? She could've left him, what good did it do anyone to try and hang on to the two of you?"
The words sat in the air while he thought on them, "maybe in a perfect world that would've happened," Harry said. "It would've been ideal but love isn't like that, maybe that's how it works for you but not for us all. She was confused and scared and maybe we made some choices that weren't so smart but love will do that to you, I guess. We're people too, we made mistakes and we're paying for them, that doesn't change how we feel."
The truth had come tumbling out. They were human, he knew well enough they had made mistakes, more than anyone had any right to. He'd hurt people, he'd done things he'd never dreamt of and it had led him here, to a room in Grimmauld Place with his heart in his hand.
But they were human, their rationale would likely never be understood by another, such was the way of things.
"It should," Hermione said. "Because it'll change how Bill feels, it'll change a lot and I don't know that you understand everything that co—"
That made his own anger rise to a sudden fever pitch. He'd lived it, he'd had to suffer the truth every waking hour, eased by her love but never truly forgotten or lost. If anyone understood, it was them.
"You don't know a thing," Harry spat. "I understand perfectly, I've lived this. It's not a fairy tale or a dream I think I'm living—it's my life, and it's all I'm going to get. I'm the one who had to wake up to this, wake up to her scared about what the future holds, scared that one day she'll decide she was better off with Bill, it's me that has to wake up knowing I've hurt the people I care about. You pretend to know, you might even think you know. You don't."
Hermione simply stared at him intently, as if prompting him to go further.
"You don't even know the courage it took to talk to you, to not lie about this. Don't tell me what I don't understand. I understand I love her, I understand all I've done and the mistakes we've made, what they cost and I understand how that sits in my heart. You've never loved someone like this, everything you know came out of a book and it's wrong, all of it. Books aren't everything and they're definitely not here. Don't try to tell me—us otherwise."
Her intent staring wavered and in lieu of the sharp response he was expecting, he got one wrought with hot emotion.
"You're different," she said, looking him in the eyes as if she saw something beyond them. "You've changed… and I'm not sure it was for the better."
How such a simple statement could make you wonder about your life up until that point.
"I have," Harry agreed. "We all have, they made me fight a war before I could buy firewhisky, it was expected. It feels wrong to me too but when I found her, she was a forgotten housewife in a foreign place with no friends and a husband who barely wrote. It doesn't take the blame away from us, we did bad things. But we were all wrong, it's too far gone to start arguing about who was right."
And then, nothing.
"That's it," Harry admitted, averting his gaze. "That's all there is, all we've done. Whether you want to talk to me or not, I get it, but it won't change how I feel for her."
Harry looked to everything but her, the roof, the walls, the decor. The confidence that came with finally speaking the truth had wavered and died such a quick death as he had finished. In its wake, the anxiety rushed to meet the situation and twisted his gut with its claws.
When he finally looked back to her, her eyes glistened with tears that hadn't spilt. "I don't know if I want to," her words were soft but held the bite of finality. "I just wanted my friend back, the one we'd been missing all year. Suddenly I almost had him back and then I found someone else in his place. I don't know how to feel about that."
Have I really become so different?
He supposed it was hard to know how you'd change, you were usually always you, for the most part. But clearly, he was different and the war had its part as had Fleur in moulding him into someone new. People had forever said that change was good, that it happened with age, though those people had mostly been friends of Aunt Petunia's who swore he'd 'become a good lad with time'.
Though this change left him unmoored and with the knowledge the old Harry would never have done what he'd done now. Now a single question followed his train of thought wherever it went, eager to find an answer in idle thoughts.
Am I a better person? Or worse?
"Feel however you like about it," he said. "If you want to talk again, I'm here, but this is me. I'm sorry you expected someone different and I missed you too, for what it's worth."
"Everything and not much now, I guess," she responded in a tearful half-smile that seemed forced though for whose benefit he was unsure. "This, all this, it doesn't feel right to me and I don't think it ever will. Maybe I can accept it one day, maybe I can understand somewhere downthe line. Maybe I'm wrong about all of this, I don't know. No matter what though, Bill needs to know—
And there it was, the world reminding him that the future was still so difficult. This had been a hurdle, but the easiest of the race ahead.
"—and so does Ron."
This would be their final act, there would be no second chances—the truth was faced here, in full, or it wasn't faced at all.
"Okay," Harry agreed and closed his eyes, willing sleep to take him and end this terrible day that only looked to be getting worse.
It hadn't, but he supposed it was worth a shot.
But she was right, they deserved to know. Their lie had gone on too long, even if a part of him wished it hadn't ended here. They deserved to know what had happened, all they had done, all they had felt and all they had wanted.
And Fleur deserved peace after all this time.
They all did.
Telling Ron had been a different beast entirely.
He'd expected them to trade places, that Ron would be loud and angry that like every other fight they'd ever had he'd explode. He'd be large in rage and try to bring that anger, righteous as it was, against him.
But he hadn't.
Ron had sat and stared as he talked, knowing Hermione waited just outside the door waiting to tell him if he hadn't. He was quiet, letting every word fall against him with the same expression as his eyes looked at the wall in a hard stare like he was seeing through it. It made him feel like a child, confessing bad behaviour to a parent who didn't expect much else.
"So we had an affair."
Harry hated how easy saying that word had started to get. It should've felt dirty, like his own anathema—instead, it felt like an inevitability. That, with each revelation the full weight of what he had done would become wholly apparent and leave him even more unmoored than what he felt now.
For all his subpar academic work and perhaps occasional teaspoon depth emotional intelligence, Ron had changed over the course of the year, and Harry had missed most of it. The exact catalyst he didn't know but he could see the fruits of its labour. From every interaction he had seen over the year to why they had been separated at the Burrow, he watched the picture form in his eyes and reach his mouth.
"So you had an affair."
The reply made Harry bristle in discomfort, clipped and quick his own words came back at him and somehow they felt even heavier when another mouth shared the burden of admitting it.
Harry nodded, not that Ron would've seen, "We did," he said. "I know what I say isn't worth much anymore, but I'm sorry."
"It's not worth much, no."
Were the replies succinct and swift because he didn't care? Because he didn't want to talk? Or because he viewed him with such disdain that even simple replies were too arduous? The thoughts plagued him and filled the tense air between them.
With a face full of the indiscernible, Harry pushed for his own answers. "Are you angry?"
A shrug that was almost apathetic followed, "I want to be," Ron admitted. "I want to be mad, I want to hate you for it—The Burrow, spending such little time with us this year but… I'm tired."
"Tired?"
"What do I have left?" Ron asked in a voice devoid of anything but reality. "I lost my home, half my family, everything we owned. I wish I could be mad, but what's that going to get me, though?"
"Ron—" Harry made to speak but was interrupted.
"Nothing, and I've been angry enough," Ron continued. "You fucked it up good and proper, Merlin knows you did. But if I get angry are you going to stop seeing her? Is it going to fix everything?"
"No."
"If nothing is gonna change and I'll just end up more tired by the end of it then I don't see much of a point."
A sad sigh left Harry's lips, "I'm sorry, not just for this, but e—"
Being cut off again made him think it was best to just make sure Ron had said all he needed to.
"I know," Ron replied simply. "It's too late now to do much."
"Well, I've missed my best mate," Harry confessed, trying to steer the conversation into calmer waters. "There's… something I need to do, something important to the war. I could use my mate's help, if you wanted to."
He felt like a hypocrite, he'd already told Hermione she couldn't be told and here he was, inviting them along as if simply knowing the secret would mend the wounds he made. It was selfish, childish and—
"I'd like that," Ron interrupted his chain of thought. "But I think I'm going to go back to Hogwarts."
Desperate.
"Oh."
Ron turned to him and there was the slightest twinge of undeserved sympathy, "I think we should have some time away—proper time, that is. You still did what you did and I don't want to tear it apart by having to side with my best mate over my brother."
Harry nodded, "I get it, I do," he assured Ron. "You don't have to explain it to me."
"I know," Ron said. "Plus she'd want me to finish school, despite everything, that's where she'd want me, all of us if she could manage."
That made him laugh a little in spite of the gravity of it all, "yeah," Harry said, "I'll miss her."
"I'll miss her too," Ron said. "She loved you like you were her son, which is good right about now. If she found out what'd happen she'd flog you like you were one of us too."
His laughter went up a gear, "I'd take it too, I deserve it."
For just one brief, distant moment with the laughter and the jokes it felt like he had his friend back.
Ron shared some of it, if only briefly. "But she'd want me where I was safest," he said. "Plus she'd want me to finish school and not be the next Fred and George. All I've got left is making her proud, I want to do that."
"And Hermione?" Harry asked. "Will she go back with you too, you reckon?"
"Yeah, I'd say so," Ron answered. "Someone needs to save the school every once in a while, it just won't be the same."
"Maybe one day," Harry said.
"Maybe one day," Ron replied. "But not today."
Fleur had always envied her parents.
Their love had always seemed both so effortless and flawless. She could barely remember any argument that lasted for more than a few hours and, contrary to her mother's insistence that love wasn't like the storybooks as she grew up, the prime example in her life was fairy tale enough.
Though she'd never broached the subject to her mother, there was always some mysticism to her parents she didn't want to dispel.
Now she wondered if theirs had been a love like this. If it'd been a fight for every inch, if perhaps her father wasn't the first or if it'd been so confusing.
"Is it true?"
Bill's voice broke her from her stupor and she sorely wished she'd had a chance to ask those questions somehow. That they might give her an ounce of guidance when she felt like she was a teenager again.
He'd only recently returned from the lowlands, searching for anyone that'd help them. He'd barely set foot into headquarters before he was interdicted by Ron, she hadn't had the courage to be the first thing he saw. The door had closed, the truth had been told and she slipped in, silently, after him.
"It's true," she confirmed.
Tears rose at the corners of her eyes and she tried desperately to blink them away and maintain some semblance of control. She'd done this, she was an adult and she knew better. The muscles in his jaw clenched in what she assumed was anger, his whole person seemed to carry a sudden, titanic weight in an instant and his blue eyes found her own.
It was hard to not relive her entire life in a moment like this, everything she'd sacrificed to get to where she was. Perhaps she'd gained more with Harry, but cutting off your finger for a smile still meant you lost something and it was a pain she felt fully.
Their first meeting hadn't been love at first sight or anything of the sort. Bill sat at his Gringotts' desk and she dropped some papers off to him on her way to her department. Besides the slight touching of hands and the glint of recognition behind his eyes, it wasn't noteworthy.
But love wasn't built upon solely by first meetings.
Then it'd been polite conversations in the halls that slowly morphed into longer, work-oriented discussions that held them for minutes at a time. Soon, work had all but vanished from their talks, left to the wayside as they began the far more interesting pursuit of who they were as people.
Dinner had slipped into the mix somewhere along the line and then it had begun, the late-night chats, the jokes, the constant care for the other. Meetings in the alcoves at Gringotts, adventures to the seaside, meetings with different family members.
Before she knew it, she'd been engaged and thought she'd found her place in it all.
It was clear she hadn't, instead, she'd taken all he'd given her and torn it into pieces. He had been a good man, not the best—he'd made mistakes too but he was better than most.
Now she wondered if she had her part in the death of a good man, there were so few left.
"You know, I thought he'd lied to me," Bill admitted, letting the weight settle. "I trusted you over him, for some reason, and now I'm just wondering what I did to deserve this."
Fleur swallowed at the pain that rose in her throat and tried to seep into her voice, "nothing," she said. "You didn't do anything."
"Clearly, I did," Bill said. "Affairs don't just appear out of thin air."
The word made her bristle, even if it shouldn't have. There'd be far worse said in the future and she'd have to weather that storm too.
Harlot, Hag, Whore, Adulteress—Veela.
She supposed that in trying so hard to be anything but, that somewhere along the way she'd become what she'd always feared, what they'd always accused her of.
She had become the other woman, the seducer of taken men, she had become what everyone had thought of Veela. Perhaps that was what was always meant to be.
With a shake of her head to free herself from the thoughts that wouldn't help her here, she relented. "Lots of things then, I suppose," she said after a second's hesitation, "Some were your fault, some were mine, some weren't either."
"Well, tell me then," Bill demanded. "Tell me because I want to understand, I want to know how I could somehow push you to… this when I was half a world away."
"That's just it," Fleur replied in turn. "You were half a world away and here I was—alone."
That put a sharpness in his voice, "What happened to 'I'll wait for you?'."
Fleur almost wanted to scream, "and I would have," she bit back, just as sharp. "But you made me wait with people that hated me and—"
"—They did not hate you!" Bill spat at her, she'd hit a nerve and had she been in her right mind, she would've ceased pushing any further.
But she wasn't, this was the culmination of all their time together. The baring of all their faults and problems, perhaps the first and last chance she'd get to release the pain in her chest that'd held her captive all year. Once the words spilt from her lips, the dam burst and there was no pushing the water back through the breach.
"Yes. Yes, they did," Fleur disagreed. "Maybe you were blind to it, and maybe it was my fault just as much as theirs, but do you have any idea what it's like to be surrounded by people who don't want you there? To have every conversation just stop when they notice you? To hear them talk about you through the walls even though they think they're being subtle? You don't because you weren't there."
"You say that like it absolves you, it doesn't."
She nodded, "it doesn't, I did more wrong than anyone here but I've got emotions too, I've got needs and wants and I was alone, maybe if I was stronger, smarter, I could've figured something out. But I wasn't, and I made a mistake."
That made some form of incredulity appear on his face as if he didn't understand or accept her reasoning. "You were alone because I needed to work," he said. "We wanted a house somewhere, we wanted to see the world—what did you expect of me?"
"I expected something, anything," Fleur practically cried at him and finally, the first tear slipped beyond her lashes to trace her cheek. "Instead I barely got a letter, I had to hear about your new location from other people—from Horace Slughorn of all people. My own fiancé couldn't be bothered to even tell me, do you understand how embarrassing that is? To not have any idea where you are and have to hear that from strangers?"
Bill didn't seem to have a response to that, instead, he averted his gaze in brief shame before something, maybe anger—she couldn't tell, brought his eyes back.
"So yes, I made a mistake," she said and, even with tears in her eyes, she felt she could stand just a little taller as the weight on her shoulders eased. "I was scared, I was alone and I was out of my depth. I felt terrible—"
It was a sharp response that cut her off mid-sentence, not that she really knew where she was going. "And how do you think I feel?" Bill said. "Do you have any idea how this makes me feel as a man? To not be able to care for the woman I loved? Do my feelings not matter here?"
"Of course they matter!" Fleur yelled, "but so do mine. I had to worry that maybe I'd forget who you were, maybe you'd never come home—maybe you didn't want to. I'd hear these whispers that maybe you'd found someone else, a Romani, an Egyptian."
"I'd never even think about it."
Now it was time for her own sharp remark, "you didn't think about writing to me either. A portkey for the weekend, a letter, a photo—anything. You could've quit and I'd have lived in a shack with you." Fleur's voice trailed off to only just above a harsh whisper. "But you didn't, and I fell for him. I tried not to, I tried with all my heart but I did and I had to wake up every morning, knowing what I'd done and how that would hurt you. I'd feel ill, I wouldn't even want to get out of bed because I was scared of doing more."
He stared at her intently, filled with some silent emotion that didn't reach his eyes or lips, not even his cheeks flared with changing feeling. He just stared.
"But I fell for him," she declared again. "And as terrible as it is, if I could do it all over, I'd fall for him again."
The words hadn't meant to come out like that, but they had and she cursed herself for it.
Finally, some emotion, but not what she craved. His eyes widened in pain, visible and unable to be passed off as anything else. She wanted to relish in making him understand what she felt, but not like this.
When he spoke next, taking her words in for the caustic truths they were, it was not with the same anger and emotion-fuelled replies.
It was broken, it was tired and it was… old.
"Did you ever love me?"
That just served to break her heart a little more.
"Of course I did," Fleur promised and took a tentative step closer. "I don't think I'd have hurt so much if I didn't. You're a good man and I loved you, I just think I fell out of it somewhere, sometimes these things just don't last."
Bill made to speak, his mouth opening and closing a few times in preparation as if he didn't know what to say, "I don't suppose I really want to know but… is he better than me?" He asked, "Was I that terrible to you?"
"You're not comparable," Fleur said. "Don't try to be."
"I want to know," he pushed. "Is he good for you?"
A question that didn't require much thought, "He is—you both were," she explained. "You're more than him in some areas, he's more than you in others. You made mistakes but I didn't do this because you were terrible to me, you just weren't what I think I needed. That doesn't mean you're less than he is, it just wasn't right for me."
"I suppose just because the puzzle looks good doesn't mean we know where the pieces go."
"Yes," she agreed. "Something like that."
Hot breath billowed from his mouth and his form seemed to deflate, "I just wish it'd come at a better time," Bill said. "Not that any time is any good for this kind of thing."
His voice wasn't angry, it wasn't even sad, just defeated. It bore the scars of losing all he had known, of losing the ones he loved and of the future, bittersweet as it was, that he had hoped would come. It had all been taken from him as had the will to fight.
"I didn't mean for it to come at such a terrible time," Fleur promised, her voice small. "But it did, and I'm sorry. You were angry at me last time and I understand that, you don't deserve any of this."
"But I got it and there's not much use pretending I don't."
With another small step forward, she embraced him gently. Chaste and the sort they were once sure they'd never give the other. The sort where you said goodbye—not to each other but to a piece of yourself you'd nurtured into life. It was a solemn thing, it held its own beauty as they parted, those pieces finally disappeared and they lamented their loss.
"I'm going to miss you," Bill whispered into her hair, his voice wavered as his arms tightened.
"I'll miss you too," Fleur replied and she meant it. She loved another, she loved him more, but that didn't erase the love she held for him nor all the good times they had. The good times that'd never return.
It wasn't explosive like she feared, or violent as she dreaded. It could've gone better, it can always go better. But they parted on terms more generous than she deserved, they were adults and sometimes these things simply did not go to plan. There was no guarantee of a happily ever after, you just owed it to yourself to search for your own—high and low.
She'd spend a lifetime full of wonder at what could've been and bear the brunt of what she'd done.
But she made her choice, now she needed time alone with it.
To know if she'd found hers.
He'd searched high and low for her before he'd thought to look to the roof.
The passageway to get there was thin and narrow, Harry didn't suppose the Blacks were much for stargazing, naming their children after them had clearly been enough. It twisted and turned, a sharp ascent through the attic where he was forced to navigate Kreacher's handiwork or lack thereof.
Eventually, he came upon a door slightly ajar, through its gap the frigid night's air fluttered through, flakes of snow occasionally on its wings. Harry stepped gently to it, pushing it open and peeking beyond. He managed a cursory glance around the perimeter of the roof before he heard her, rather than saw her.
She was singing.
It was a soft melody, a tune carried on the cold wind that caressed him and beckoned him onwards even though he wondered if it'd be best to give her time alone. Harry rounded the corner to see her lying on the ground, a heavy coat beneath her to protect her back from the cold roof, her hair splayed around her like a halo.
Her song was one he couldn't make out, he assumed it was French. It was beautiful, though not as one would come to expect of a song. Even amongst words he couldn't understand, it said things he hadn't expected and, in a way, bared her heart to the night. It was the sort of melody that drew him closer.
His footsteps had gone unnoticed until he had gotten closer, just a few feet away before she turned her head gently and took in his person. Fleur's eyes were red-rimmed as if she'd been crying but not any time recently. A small smile was offered to him as he kept approaching slowly as if she was an animal he could somehow scare away.
"Hey," Fleur offered after she observed him for just a second longer.
"Hey," Harry returned, he didn't have much else to give her. Instead, he wordlessly took a seat beside her, she shuffled slightly to the side to offer the coat's protection against the cold ground. Their shoulders brushed as he nestled into position and he looked up to the sky.
Fleur took a similar approach, she spoke no word as he settled, content to simply stare upwards into the dark sky. Her eyes shining with the slow dance of the infinities above.
Harry turned to her, taking in the soft angles of her face as she turned back to him. He had always relished being this close, each time felt like a little victory in his own heart. From this distance, he could see the remnants of her tears more clearly, the slight blush to her cheeks, the little tear tracks that extended onto her pale skin and fought against the feeling to reach up and run his finger across their journey.
Eventually, the silence broke when he found the courage to speak, only after reciting his line half a hundred times so as not to drive her away.
"How'd it go?" Harry asked.
There was a bit of indecision in her face, "Better than I deserved," Fleur eventually decided on. "But still terrible, you?"
He blew out a long breath, "yeah," Harry agreed. "I reckon about the same, I'm not even sure if we're still friends."
"They'll understand eventually."
"Yeah," Harry said. "I hope so… you okay?"
Fleur nodded lightly, "I think so." Harry nodded back to her and her lips parted as if she wanted to continue. "It's just… do you think we did the right thing?"
It was rare that she ever came to him for guidance, she had always seemed so self-contained and sure. If nothing else it was a reminder that, despite titles, she was just as lost as he was.
She had loved, she had gotten lost, she'd been confused and she'd been hurt. She just wanted to know it was for something and not nothing.
Harry had come to realise there were plenty of parts of love no one bothered to explain, this was one of them.
He grappled with the question while her eyes traced his face, "I think so," Harry eventually said. "I think we did what was best for us, maybe just not in the best way."
Happiness at the cost of someone else's isn't happiness, it's just shifting pain.
He supposed that'd be a sentiment that'd haunt him for more than a few nights to come.
"It depends though," he continued. "Are you happy?"
"Yes," she answered quickly as if the answer hadn't required much thought. "I'm happy."
"Then I think we made the right choice for us."
Then the silence returned, but it had been different from all its predecessors today. It was calmer—softer. In place of talking, Fleur had resumed her singing under her breath and for its duration, Harry let himself fall into the melody.
"You have a beautiful voice," Harry breathed when she finished. "What was that?"
"Just a lullaby my mother sang to us when we were little," she explained. "She used to sing it to us when we were scared of something. We got a new owl, years ago, and it frightened Gabby to death, it got its fair share of use."
Harry blinked a few times, taking in what she had said, "Are you scared of something now?"
"Yeah," she admitted and he felt his breath quicken. "A lot."
"Like?"
"It's complicated, I don't know if I can just put words to it."
"Could you try? For me?" Harry asked.
Fleur let out a gusty breath and the words stilled at her lips for a few long moments, "How I feel about you, for one."
"Why does that scare you?"
He could feel his heart in his mouth as he spoke, perhaps it had finally become too much for her.
"Why wouldn't it?" she asked, "You've been in my life for all of a year and look where we are, look what we've become and all we've done."
His throat tightened, "Do you want it to stop?"
Fleur shook her head and it eased for a moment, "No, never," she assured him. "But so much has changed, I had dreams, I had my life planned out in my head. I wanted to go east and see the sands and the stars. I wanted to go see the snow and the mountains, I wanted to see the world and then, all of a sudden, I realised I wanted to see those things with you."
Harry didn't want to speak, not that he could. He wasn't sure he'd have the words to try and reassure her of anything at the moment.
"And it's not even just that," Fleur continued. "It can be anything, now my dreams are just us, doing nothing, sitting somewhere and having a picnic. They're not these grand adventures where we see the world anymore. They're just us, together. And that scares me."
"I don't mean to scare you," he whispered.
"It's not you," she whispered back. "But you're in my life now, and I want you here, I can't even imagine you not being here. Maybe it'll make it all less scary, maybe it won't." She laughed beneath her breath, "this would be so much easier if we had wine."
"I'm sorry you didn't get your dream," he tried next.
A little smile followed his words, "Don't be," she said. "Dreams are fragile things, they're not made of much and, just sometimes, you find something better instead."
"I take it I'm something better?"
"I'm fairly confident I was talking about Ronald."
That made him laugh in turn, the easy sort you didn't even realise came out until you heard it. "Maybe that's what we can do when this is all over," Harry said. "See places and drink wine. I've always wanted to visit Spain. No particular reason or anything, I just think the world's a big place and you know, if you wanted, maybe we could see it together."
She smiled harder at the thought, "I want to show you home," Fleur said. "It's not much, but Maman and Papa would adore you."
"Even after everything?"
"Even after everything," Fleur confirmed. "You make me happy, happy like I haven't been. They'll love you for that alone. But… you've got this gravity to you, it draws people in, they just can't help but love you."
"If someone could get that memo to half the British people every other year, I'd be thankful."
A little snort followed, the sort that made him smile. "They're fools, and anyone that spends time with you can see that."
"I don't know that I'm all that," Harry shrugged, "but thank you."
"No," Fleur said. "You're so much more."
He shuffled a little closer to her, their shoulders now sandwiched against the other and her head came up to rest upon his chest.
"Someone's being awfully nice tonight," Harry joked.
Fleur put her hands up in a gesture of 'I don't know' and giggled slightly. "I guess that's something, I was scared to tell you what I thought."
"And now?"
"Now I'm not scared anymore," she whispered before looking up to the sky. "Sirius is up there again, just like last time."
Harry breathed a soft breath as he sought it out, "I guess it's our star now, after all it's seen..."
A little blush came across her cheeks—he'd rarely ever seen her blush. That was just the benefit of finding the right person, he guessed.
She spoke as they stared at the star, breaking his gaze, "You know how I'm not afraid anymore?"
"Yeah?"
With her own gaze broken, their eyes met and he marvelled at the blue that had enraptured him. Searching her iris for imperfections, following the different shades of blue as they melded and faded like waves seamlessly into the next.
"I love you."
Once the words had left her lips, she tilted her head upwards to meet his own. Strands of silver hair falling over his cheeks like thin gossamer strands that made the moonlight seem so much more. Her lips had searched out their counterpart, softly brushing against his to allow him to taste her, if only faintly.
"I love you too," he whispered. "So much."
And he did, with all his heart. It was the sort of feeling you could never describe until it happened, certainly one he'd never expected he'd feel. She was his constant companion and soon he too couldn't imagine a day without her funny jokes, her witty insights or support.
He didn't want to, he never wanted to go another day without the small smiles she cast at him from across the room, the laughter at the most insignificant things that seemed massive when he was with her.
Then they fell, like they had always been falling, into each other. It hadn't been like their first kiss, needy and addictive, full of fervour and laden with the hope that more would follow.
This was a promise, a promise that more would come. That the difficulty of their love only made the fruits it bore sweeter, a promise that everything would be alright and a promise of love—of all the things they wanted to say but didn't know the words for.
Every kiss, glittering in the moonlight, was a piece of their heart they relinquished to the other, willingly. Gone, never to be seen again only to welcome a piece of the other's in return.
And it was there, on the roof of Grimmauld Place, that all their tomorrows began with a kiss.